Strength of Family Even After Continuous Setbacks

For the last 21 years, Cristina Carlos has lived in Altadena with her family in a small hacienda-style house. The interior was filled with life, with Carlos’s husband, two kids, and all their pets. The home where her kids had their childhoods, filled with family heirlooms that had been passed down over time and irreplaceable photographs of family members who had passed away. Bright colors, greenery, and personal touches of their Mexican heritage could be seen added to the house over time. Colorful patterns of Mexican tile lined the house’s exterior. That same Mexican tile would be found in the ashes of her home weeks after the Los Angeles fires, remnants of a life left behind.

On Jan. 8th, Carlos was supposed to be celebrating her birthday. Instead, emergency evacuation orders flooded her inbox notifications from Los Angeles. Having lived in fire-prone Altadena for the past two decades, Carlos had seen notifications like this in the past. When she and her family evacuated, they packed a bag and went to Carlos’s mom’s house–that was their routine, and they followed the same routine for these fires. 

This time it was different; they would have never expected their home to no longer be there when they returned weeks later. While they were heading to Carlos’s mom’s house, the Eaton fires were full-force blazing, heading to Altadena, straight for Carlos’s neighborhood. 

“This is everyone’s story,” Carlos said. “Their heirlooms, the photo albums. All the antiques and the history, all the landmarks, everything is gone. How do we recreate things?”

Before the property owners of Altadena were allowed to return to their neighborhoods, military checkpoints blocked the streets. Carlos and her neighbors didn’t know whether their house was lost in the fire. Late at night, Carlos’ friend’s kids snuck into their neighborhood, sending photos of remnants of their house to their neighbors, who were now gone. That is how Carlos found out that her home had been one of the homes lost. Community was the one thing that helped emotionally with their loss. The loss that those around her could share and support each other with.

“A cop stopped, and he came over and said, ‘I know your house, your street, and your community,” Carlos said. “He gave us each a hug, and we were crying together.” 

Neighbors, police officers, and friends came around to mourn each other’s loss in the fires. Having known each other’s houses after driving past them for so many years, relationships connected the community. Carlos runs a non profit for low income first time mothers called New Familia in Lincoln Heights. Her husband, Steve, has been a teacher at Monrovia High school for decades. It pains Carlos to drive around or return to see the destruction, unlike her husband, who finds comfort. 

“My husband will drive around just to see what’s there, to see the devastation,” Carlos said. “I can’t bear it, it just breaks me, for him it gives him consolation.” 

Life has been hard for Carlos even after losing her home. When evacuation orders were put in place, she and her family went to stay with her mom for the time being, not knowing that this would become their temporary home for months to follow. Unfortunately, Carlos’s mother got severely sick and had to be hospitalized.

“It’s been an awful week, and my mom took a turn for the worse, and they really couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t get the oxygen that she needed to breathe, and we’ve been with her these last several days,” Carlos said. “She’s on morphine now, and they took her oxygen off, and we’re just letting her pass naturally, and her heart is strong and holding on, and it’s been so much, I can’t tell you. I’m thankful for my sisters and family who have been with us day after day.”

Planning their rebuilding process has been just as hard for Carlos. She’s saddened by the whole process of rebuilding. In her eyes, cleaning up the remnants of her home is erasing the history that was once there. Still, due to her mother’s illness, she’s in a weird spot emotionally of where they ended up after the fires

“We’re living with my mom, and now my mom won’t be in her home anymore,” Carlos said. “We’re living in her home; it just feels like a weird place to be.” 

Due to only bringing a bag with a few clothes when evacuating, when choosing an outfit for the morning, Carlos feels lost. Not knowing what clothes she has, it becomes an extra step to get ready. 

“Every day I get dressed, I don’t know what clothes I have or what things go with each other,” Carlos said. “It’s been an ordeal. I don’t know what clothes to put on.” 

Altadena historically is a very diverse community. Being one of the first middle-class African American neighborhoods in the area, as well as having a heavy Hispanic/Latino population. Different from Pacific Palisades, a community that was also burned down due to the LA fires, Altadena was a heavily middle-class community full of diversity. 

“Where we live, it was very diverse between professionals, artists, workers, and normal people,” Carlos said. “Normal people making a living. The people that we know that lost their homes, there was a lot of diversity, different backgrounds.”

Carlos feels lucky that their family had somewhere to go, unlike others who were displaced. She compares it to disasters that happen in other countries that go through situations like this, or even worse, and end up in refugee camps. 

“In a way, now we know what people go through with these disasters,” Carlos said. “We know what that’s like in other countries and other states; it’s a horrible thing to survive this, and people who end up in a refugee camp.” 

Altadena is a strong community that has been working together to rebuild and keep an optimistic mindset. With her family’s support, Carlos is grateful every day for having her kids with her, still mourning everything she lost. 

“I think what’s sad is that my dad died 30 years ago, and I lost photos and anything else,” Carlos said. “Anything I had of my abuelos, too. My kids are here; they lost everything from their childhood, but they’re here.”

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the 2025 California wildfires. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.